Prayer.

I have never been much of one to pray. When I pray, my mind tends to wander or I fall asleep, depending on the time of day it is. Maybe it's not something that a good Adventist, Christian girl is supposed to admit, but it's the truth. Before coming to Cambodia, previous SMs and mentors would always tell me how important prayer was in the mission field. I always wondered how that was going to work for me, when I wasn't the type of person to pray all the time. Being a counselor at camp and now a teacher, I pray in front of my kids multiple times on a daily basis. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself because I don't feel like I have the words that these kids need to hear. I end up praying to myself before hand, hoping that what I say in my prayer will hopefully click. Most of our students are not Christian, have never heard about God or know what the Bible is. Cambodia is more than 90% Buddhist, with less than half a percent of the population proclaiming to be Christian.

Today, I sat in the back of the classroom while Amber took attendance and had morning prayer. We switch on and off everyday, and today I was particularly glad I was the one sitting in the desk watching and listening. Since our first day of teaching, we have been trying to teach our students what a "prayer request" is. One day we finally reworded it from prayer request to just asking them if there was something they would like to pray for and that seemed to click. Amber today asked the kids if anyone had a silent request, and after 23 blank stares, she proceeded to explain that it could be something that they were too shy or embarrassed to say out loud, but that God still wanted us to pray for. A few of the older kids were slowly catching on, but the majority of the class still seemed pretty lost (some even closed their eyes and folded their hands because they thought her explanation was actually a prayer). After a few quick glances from her in my direction, I quickly chimed in "God knows everything. He knows exactly what you are thinking and everything that is on your heart." That produced a round of "really's" and "no ways" and I smiled to myself as Amber expanded on what I had just said. While I sat their listening to her explain, I said a quick prayer asking God to help them understand what we were saying. It seemed like they were slowly catching on.

There are so many days I feel like I'm not connecting with my kids at all, especially on a spiritual level. Yet on this day, it wasn't even 8 am yet, and this news that God always knew what they were thinking was, quite frankly, blowing their minds. I had to keep myself from laughing when one of the little boys looked at Amber and said "I know what you're thinking!" and Amber said, "No you don't, only God knows exactly what I'm thinking." After that response one of the little boys sitting next to my desk in the back, said somewhat to himself, "Oh man. I want to know what everyone is thinking."

Once they finally understood that only God can know everyone's thoughts, Amber asked one of the students if they would like to have morning prayer. This is also something that we have been trying to get someone to do since the first day. Everyday, when this question is asked, this very open, very obnoxiously loud class, becomes very silent and shy, and Amber or I end up praying. I thought it was going to end up the same way every other day had. They all complained that their English wasn't good enough or just a straight "No, cha." Once again, I chimed in from the back: "You can pray in Khmer if you want to, you don't have to pray in English," I said, hoping that this suggestion would make them more comfortable. Eventually one of our older students said she would, a student who had last week shared with us that one of her friends had recently died and she wanted to make sure that her friend had known God before she died. All the students obediently folded their hands, and closed their eyes. In a prayer that was so quiet I could not hear if she was praying in English or Khmer, our first student prayed in class.

I cannot explain to you how I felt as I sat desperately trying to hear the words she was saying. For the first time, I heard no one speak or even move a muscle during the entire prayer. They were all listening and praying along with her.

I know how uncomfortable praying in front of others can be for me, and to have one of the quietest students be willing to do something that many of the other students considered to be embarrassing really made me happy in a way that I cannot truly describe. Though my student may say "ul" (understand in Khmer) even when they don't, I hope today they did "ul" something.

-Alex